NOSTALGY FOR .........IWC POCKET WATCHES.

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I can confirm David's experience only partly. I have owned several Borgel cased watches and when I asked for an extract I did get one.For instance the watch in the Toelke/King book picture 211 is a Borgel wrist watch (the description is not very good !) and it did have an extract.On the other hand I own a Borgel watch from 1893 which-according to the extract- went to Pugni in Milan . This could confirm the pre 1900 hypothesis.

I can confirm David's experience only partly. I have owned several Borgel cased watches and when I asked for an extract I did get one.For instance the watch in the Toelke/King book picture 211 is a Borgel wrist watch (the description is not very good !) and it did have an extract.On the other hand I own a Borgel watch from 1893 which-according to the extract- went to Pugni in Milan. This could confirm the pre 1900 hypothesis.

Rolf

Hi Rolf,

What were the dates of the other Borgel cased IWC watches for which you did get extracts?

Do you know the date of the Borgel cased wrist watch in the Toelke/King book picture 211? I think a Borgel cased wrist watch can hardly be earlier than about 1910.

It is great to see here David Boettcher along with the vivid discussion about the Borgel watches. My limited brain function tells me the following. Among the Swiss watch manufacturers, IWC is known for its excellent and preserved archives. It is astonishing to receive an Extract of the Archives, telling you that your IWC is 110 years old, that it was made in 18 gold with this particular movement number, casenumber and person and city to whom the watch was sold. An IWC extract of the Achives is a true and valuable document.If the contract between IWC and Stauffer in London was activated in 1897, it is logical that a customer cannot receive an extract of the Archives, if the movement has been produced after 1897. As only the movement number was known and as IWC did not produce the Stauffer cases nor the Borgel cases,IWC could simply not provide an extract of the Archives, simply because the data were incomplete.Now we see that David Boettcher has an extract of the Archives for a Borgel IWC watch dating from 1902. This is amazing and to me it means that Borgel must have supplied Borgel cases to IWC, so that the "complete" watch could leave Schaffhausen. That this was happening before 1897, we knew. Now the year 1897 does not remain to be the key-year where things changed. As we did not think nor assume that this excellent discussion was appearing, we feel obliged to post Part 2 on the Borgel watches tomorrow, November 29.Kind regards,On behave of the team,Adrian v d Meijden,(alwaysiwc).

As promised, here is Part 2.Friedrich Wagener assumed that all movements produced by IWC, to be housed in a Borgel case, were exported to Stauffer in London, after 1897. We learned yesterday that this date might be later. The agreement with Stauffer was that viewing the movement, no stamp of IWC should be there, although it was a 100 % IWC movement. However, dismanteling such movement, reveales the Schaffhausen bock or ram. Visible was the trademark of Stauffer "S&Co" as well as the trade name "PEERLESS" . These "Stauffer-Borgel" watches had a blank dial, meaning that the IWC logo was not printed, nor was a Stauffer logo present.Friedrich Wagener : " The earliest IWC "Borgel" pocket watch might be a Lepine IWC 19 Lig. (cal.52) with a 24 hour dial. It was sold to A. Pugni in Milan on July 25 1893. The movement nr. is 86441 and the case nr. 108322, respectively. The archives describe the case as made from burnished steel, making the watch case completely black". In the watch literature also the name gun metal is used. Yesterday we learned that this watch is owned by Rolf Birkenkämper...

The second early IWC -Borgel pocket watch described by Fritz Wagener is a steel burnished watch with gold encrustation. For me (alwaysiwc) it is the only Borgel case made of steel, that I have seen, with a gold inlay from before 1900. Remember that François Borgel had a buisiness : "the making of watch cases in gold and silver and in steel with gold encrustations".Friedrich Wagener : "Here is the so called "Dragon" Watch, made from steel but with encrustations of gold (émail champlevé). This real exotic effected watch has a cal. 52, 19 lig. H7 Mod.1894. The movement number is 115315 and the case nr. is 133516, respectively."I learned from Fritz that a well known Swiss expert on IWC watches (R.E.), is the lucky owner of this one....

...Fritz continues :Regarding the movements used for the "Borgel" watches, it has to be emphasized that up to now we came across with only a few watches which have been produced before 1897 and which have been stamped with the typical and well-known IWC "lenses" (IWC stamp). As soon as the the general distribution contract between IWC and Stauffer became valid in 1897, all movements sticking in a "Borgel" case were sold via Stauffer. It is noticed that no cal. 65 (finger bridge) movements were used for the "Borgel" cases even when these are nearly of the same construction as the cal. 52 and cal. 57. All movements used to have the same size : 19 Lig., but different heights....